Is Fragmented Financing Bad for Your Health?
Inquiry, Summer 2011
32 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2008 Last revised: 13 May 2011
Date Written: January 7, 2011
Abstract
Americans finance health care through a variety of private insurance plans and public programs. This organizational fragmentation could threaten continuity of care and adversely affect outcomes. Using a large sample of veterans who were eligible for mixtures of VA- and Medicare-financed care, we estimate a system of equations to account for simultaneity in the determination of financing configuration and the probability of hospitalization for an ambulatory care sensitive condition. We find that a one standard deviation change in financing fragmentation increases the risk of an adverse outcome by one fifth.
Keywords: Health Insurance, Health Outcomes, Selection Models
JEL Classification: I12, I18
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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